Healthy Schools: anxiety

Mindfulness exercises, fact sheets, tips and videos that can help children and young people to relieve the signs of anxiety and restore calm in the classroom

Find all Healthy Schools resources here

Understanding anxiety

• These slides will help you to understand the role that the stress response plays in anxiety and poor mental health, as well as the difference between low mood and anxiety.
  • Stress Distress Poor Mental Health (PDF, 187KB)
• Check out 7 ways to deal with children and young people’s anxiety (external link) from the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families.
• We developed this 1-page  guide for teachers on how to reduce conflict and stress.
  • Emotionally Friendly Communication - Reduce Anxiety Conflict (PDF, 212KB) 
• Help them defuse the stress response with the 1-page Worry tree tool (external link).

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Primary

• You can print and give this coping wheel tool to children who need support to cope with worry or signs of anxiety. 
  • Coping Skills Wheel (PDF, 1MB)
• These 2 core books could help children understand anxiety:
  • The Huge Bag of Worries by Virginia Ironside and Frank Rodgers
  • Ruby’s Worry by Tom Percival

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Secondary

• This lesson plan by Public Health England (external link) will help you to talk about worry. It includes a PowerPoint to show in class as well as activities to do in and out of the classroom.
• This video can help young people to relate and start a conversation about their feelings of anxiety.
  
  This 7-minute video: In our own words. Testimonies of adolescents.
  

  Note for iPhone users and Youtube. There is a known bug with iOS and Youtube, Two buttons are read before the player but provide no functionality. We advise that you skip these to access the content.

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For children and young people

• Check out this primary and lower secondary 6-minute film (external link) from Anna Freud about managing anxiety and talking to others for support.
• Here is a worry management book (pocket size) that can be shared with older children or young people to use on their own or with the help of an adult.
  • Managing Worry Pocket Guide (PDF, 700KB)
• 2-page tips for calming Anxiety with Mindfulness
  • Tips for calming anxiety using mindfulness (PDF, 111KB)
• Childline has created a Calm zone page (external link) full of free resources for children and young people to cope and relax.

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Returning to school

Separation anxiety can become an issue when it's time to return to school. Here are some resources to help.

• Teachers (external link)
• Families (external link)
• Young people (external link)

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More resources

• You can find more exercises on our Mindfulness page that could help manage feelings associated with anxiety.
• Check out our Stress page for resources about exam anxiety.

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